Just Another Case of Stockholm Syndrome
by Papilium
Summary: "How dare you touch him, any of you? How do you cast eyes on him when I had forbidden it? Back, I tell you all! This man belongs to me! Beware how you meddle with him, or you'll have to deal with me!"- Dracula. A man- Jonathon Harker- sent to an isolated castle where a tall, dark, and mysterious vampire reigns? Gothic Beauty and the Beast. Guess which one is the Beast. D/JH


"How dare you touch him, any of you? How do you cast eyes on him when I had forbidden it? Back, I tell you all! This man belongs to me! Beware how you meddle with him, or you'll have to deal with me!" -Dracula

 **Just Another Case of Stockholm Syndrome**

The fair lady approached him first, voluptuous lips slicked by a darting red tongue. Her movements were feline, graceful, soundless. Jonathon Harker was paralyzed as he watched her. The prey unable to wrench its eyes from the predator. A thrill of fear ran through him, making the ends of his hair stand up- or was it exhilaration? Or excitement?

The scent of musty, dried flowers clung around her like a cloud. It filled his nostrils, drugging him, dragging his consciousness beneath the tide. The devil will drag you under...Her dead-flower breath puffed over his face but he dared not move away, her sapphire eyes pinned him.

 _The eyes that fix you in a formulated phrase,_

 _And when I am formulated, sprawling on a pin,_

 _When I am pinned and wriggling on the wall..._

Then her lips descended over his mouth, lower and lower, settling over the delicate skin of his neck. Without thinking he bared his throat, allowing her greater access as she angled her head into the very crook of his neck.

The soft palpitations of his heart pulsed through his jugular veins- Swoosh! Swoosh! Swoosh! So loud in her ears. She ran her tongue over the tips of her pointed white teeth before lapping at the expanse of skin before her. His blood surged to the surface, throbbing under her ministrations, ready to spill out and blossom into her waiting mouth.

Suddenly she drew away as if burnt. A chill permeated the air, suffused it in the fear Jonathon had thought he left behind. In a single instant, as if awoken from a spell, his heart was plunged in ice.

He knew that feeling. The uneasy feeling in the pit of his stomach, the crawling of his skin overtop his shifting bones, the feeling of being surrounded and drowned and held below the surface by a strong, cold hand. Dracula had returned.

" _How dare you touch him, any of you? How do you cast eyes on him when I had forbidden it? Back, I tell you all! This man belongs to me!_ " Fury was etched on his features and rolled off him in waves.

Though the ladies cowered, indignation welled in Jonathon's chest. He didn't belong to anyone! Save Mina...save Mina. How quickly he had forgotten her as that temptress had assailed him. But peeking out from behind Dracula now at the fair lady who stood between two dark aquiline figures, his stomach churned. Her face, split as it was in fear at Dracula's presence, was warped and twisted with a cruelness he could not ignore. For just a second he allowed himself to be grateful for his jailer's opportune entrance. But then the moment passed as he was thrown bodily over the Count's broad shoulder and blinked to find himself within his chambers again.

The Count set him down gently as if he were a glass doll that was easily broken. Disoriented and dazed, Jonathon peered up into the dark piercing eyes of the Count and opened his mouth in silent question.

"You had unfortunately fallen asleep upon the couch in the library. I have brought you to your chambers."

His words made perfect sense, thought Jonathon as shadows crept along his vision. Then with all the ease in the world, Dracula stroked his cold dead hands along Jonathon's cheeks and bent down so that his rank breath filled the other's nostrils.

"Stay in your chambers, Jonathon," he bade him with gleaming eyes. "You'll be safer here."

The Count withdrew, eyes flashing red in the moonlight. A smirk twisted his thin lips into a grotesque mask. He was master here. Jonathon might not know it yet, but soon he would learn. Learn or break or die. The door swung shut, leaving Jonathon trapped in the wretched darkness, hands clenched around nothing. Not even the air.


End file.
